Hello Winchester!
Are you guys ok, because it's a very de-press-ing news bulletin! It's heavy but at least no people have died - just horses....
Overall though it shows some good technique, good story telling, some decent subtleties, but a few obvious errors along the way. So let's get started. Read it all. It does affect you.
TITLES AND HEADLINES (HARRY)
I think the titles are probably the longest news titles I have seen! And the sound seems to fade out at the end. Can we find a happy compromise. If we are going to run 30 seconds then sustain the music to the end or it feels like we are saying 'I know these are a bit long, so we'll fade out at the end because I am a bit embarrassed about them....'
The headlines are strong and the writing on the pony one is clever - I just wonder if among the gloom we should have had happy dogs, rather than dying horses. If it had been dying dogs (like last week) and happy horses, then not only would the illiteration have been better, but also the story and would have warranted a headline. As it wasn't, then I think go with happy dogs.
JOB LOSSES (ALEX)
LINK: This is a really well rounded look at the jobs' scene in the area, tying in three aspects. Well done. However I thought the 1,000 jobs to go in Portsmouth were definite. You say their jobs 'are at risk' this week. Which is it? Then later before you speak to Nadine you say they have gone.....
PKG: These are actually difficult packages to do when you only have exterior shots. What we really need is them providing materials for tyres of course. We need the factory floor. If they won't let you in then clearly that's impossible.
Well done for getting the Union's involvement, however when you are setting her up don't describe her as a spokesperson, when we can see them. Just say something like " Workers union the GMB revealed that...."
You interview is also in complete profile. There are number of different set up shots and cutaways which shows good practice but the interview is shot completely from the side so we can only see half her face, and because she is wearing glasses, you cannot see her eyes at all. The camera should be where she is looking and this is basic.
However well done for laying a little bit of her voice underneath the edit before we see her talking. EXCELLENT.
I like your final shot as well, but there is a stumble in your PTC.
Tips: Slow down your voice over as some of your words are swallowed at the top on the piece and you can't hear what you are saying clearly. Also if you stumble on a PTC do it over and over again until you get it right and YOU are happy with it.
Also with stories like this the way to get some reaction is to wait for a shift to finish and workers to pile out and then VOX POP them outisde the plant. They will always talk because they are eager to show their disgust at the management etc. So stay at the scene until you are happy you have got everything.
FLYBE (HARRY)
ULAY: This is really well crafted and shows quite sophisticated understanding of the construction of a bulletin. However 'In more Southern job losses' is not a great way to start the ulay. It actually doesn't make sense.
But the pictures, the way you have understood how it reflects a local audience, and your telling of the story are actually excellent, so very well done on this front to those concerned.
JOBS DEBRIEF (NADINE)
Again really nicely drawn together and good explaination of what happened last week because not everyone will have heard or remembered that news.
THIS WEEK'S BANNED PHRASE: "Joining me now......" She is not joining you now, she is with you now, or 'our political editor Nadine Forshaw is with me in the studio.....'
Again this was a good idea well executed, except it sounds like Nadine's microphone wasn't working and we could only hear her off Harry's mic.
Tips: Harry soften your approach to Nadine. Don't talk to her like you've never met her before. She is one of our own and therefore you should have a soft rapport with her. Nadine, be careful you don't use you arms too much, and also never let on that you have been trying to get hold of someone but failed. What you can dress it up as is 'the unions are locked in face to face talks with their bosses, trying to hammer out a deal that would save shipbuilding in the area. The unions will report back to us after those meetings......'
POLICE COMMISSIONER (MATT)
LINK: Lots of 'Cs' in that link which made you stumble and too much repetition of commisioner. Maybe his Hampshire counterpart (although there's a nother 'C') would have been better.
Tip: You are writing the links so if you stumble a couple of times when reading through, change it. You are the only one who will have egg on your face.
PKG: The initiative you have shown in making this a story is commendable. Not only that but you have used ability to pull the story together, to get the necessary parties to talk (albeit one being a phono), and to travel to Birmingham to make it happen. Very well done.
The construction of the package is quite clever too and visually it works with the added bits you have added to the computer screen. You have slightly cheated by covering an opening PTC (another pet hate) with a shot of a police van, without actually saying anything!
The phono interview is a real problem however as the quality is very poor and I would be interested to know how that was recorded.
Also I think there needs to be a line explaining what a police and crime commissioner actually is because I bet most people still don't know. Also I think they are across England and not the UK.
But on the whole this is superior work with a real journalistic bias with bags of initiative.
WINCHESTER PRISON (CHRISTINA)
LINK: Terrific. It nails the whole story. It's detailed, concise and well written. Best yet.
PKG: It's a good 'get' as we say. Of course he wants to spout off on the good news but he will be a very good contact to have. Well done for getting him. Again we've shot him in the rather ghostly black/grey studio which is a little odd.
What we all know is the problem on this is the lack of shots and we should make it our goal now to get in the prison to shoot it. We have made the contact and we need to exploit it to get inside. Even if it is when some of our drama people are in there putting on performances etc. We need shots of that place.
Christina - great question though to ask him to 'paint a picture of what the prison was like back then.' PERFECT. We have no pictures, so tell us about it. Well done.
Small gripe - get him to take his ID pass off. If we were at his gaff, then OK, but he's at our manor, so sliong it guvnor!
KIDNAP COURT CASE (KATE)
LINK: 'Also in crime'...... 'ALSO IN CRIME????' Harry what are you on this week. a) it doesn't make sense, and b) it is no way to link stories. 'Also in fits of giggles when I heard it.' The rest of the link is good!
PKG: Well done, you have done pretty well at telling this story with absolutely no pictures whatsoever. I understand what happened but be careful not to use police speak when doing court stories. You talk about 'abraisons' but what are they really - cuts and bruises? - and you say the police 'intervened' - how did they intervene - how did they find him all trussed up in the back of a van, or in a house or where? I wanted the denouement after six days.
Tip: This is not a package if there are no pictures. There are only pictures if you go to his house, or you drive to Cambridge where he ended up, and maybe film along the route to see where he was taken. Or even do it as a map if necessary...the number of miles etc. But it is not a package without that. So it's more a NIB with shots of the defendants.
However Kate you have done brilliantly to explain it all with a single PTC, so on that score very well done, a really professional job. And the perfect out-line too to round it off, that they would be deported.
POLICE FIXED NOTICE (TOM)
LINK: You're getting the hang of it now....
PKG: Well done again this a really fair effort and you have used pictures well and thought about who you might interview.
Tip: One thing I might have tried is actually a few vox pops of drivers. Show them the pictures of what the drivers are doing in the police video and then ask them if they've ever done anything like that. On occasions like this the vox pop could add to the story.
It was a perfect start to the package. Great pictures, very well explained. Spot on. It tells the story in words and pictures. Well done for getting the AA and a driving instuctor involved aswell. But as I say above vox pops may have helped, or even filming some drivers at a roundabout or on a duel carriageway and see what they do. We don't have to reveal identities or number plates but just to see if anything happened.
Also your cutaways are too brief and we shouldn't really see an interviewee, then a cutaway, then an interviewee, then a cutaway then an interviewee again!
Tip: Use two shots for a cutaway or certainly something longer than a one shot might be. Use it for how long it feels it should be to work visually, rather than just a device to cover an edit. Use it to your advantage and not just as a function of deceit!
Finally please don't end a piece with SOT and then an SOQ - find something, even if only one line, in between and then sign off.
NEW FOREST PONIES
LINK: Harry you are certainly on something this week. One minute brilliant, the next minute mad. I don't think you can throw in jokes about bacon when you are talking about dead ponies. You'll have the pony lobby on to you.
PKG: What a great start to this package. Terrific. So simple. Good shots, mixed with good NATSOT, mixed with great explanation and a terrific PTC. Your best opening 20 seconds yet.
It would have been nice, however, to have had a vet on this one, and bearing in mind you are our dead animal correspondent, I think you could have used your contacts to get some outside authority on this. Also, this may be my ignorance, but I didn't know what a verderer was until I looked it up.
Tip: Always get someone else into your package to give you an independent slant on a story. We need talking heads every time (except court stories).
SPORT
DAVID ARMSTRONG
Without a sports presenter you look like one of those quiet Thursday night sports evenings where there's not much to report and the news anchor does it. We have an abundance of talent who want to try and present so always, always have a sports presenter. What was the reason this week?
Liam it's a good interview - it made me feel very old to see David Armstrong, who was bald as a player, looking much older now! There are plenty of angles on the interview, that's fine, but I'm not sure there's a place for the black and white shot.
EASTLEIGH
Laura you have a very good feel for packaging. It is really nicely paced and written. You use space as much as you use words and that is a very good thing. However I think you should have found an extra line over the replay of the goal as it was such a dramatic ending to the game.
Also your colour balancing is all wrong. The pictures are blue again. Make sure you white balance, with the white card picking up the lights from the floodlights. And if it gets dark during the game make sure you keep checking the balance.
Also use a caption on the manager the second time you see him.
Tip: If you only want the first few seconds of a grab and then you need to use a cutaway before going back to the interviewee for a second time on a different piece of SOT, it is perfectly alright to caption him on the second time that we see him, as the first time round it will be too brief and no one will be able to read it.
AND FINALLY
LINK: By this stage Harry you had been drinking too much caffeine and you were trying to pour in as many dog gags as you could. Time to gag you I think!
PKG: Another good effort, but with bits missing. It's a great PTC at the end, and that's what I meant last week by showing a bit more of your personality. However I think it might have needed another line there, or a bit more interaction with the dog at the end.
What is also missing is any more dogs. Milo is lovely of course, and I have nothing against the little brown fella, but I would have liked to have seen more Milos as that is the whole point of the story.
At the top we also have to try and get the right message across, because dogs are used for brilliant things, like rescues, finding drugs, for the blind etc so the story is about what they are thinking isn't it, because we already know they are intelligent actually.
OVERALL
A mixed bag this week, but excellent moments again that shows you are listening and experimenting and using some very sound techniques. Well done.
Thursday, 14 November 2013
Wednesday, 16 October 2013
Winol 16 October 2013
WINOL 16TH OCTOBER 2013
Here is my detailed run down of WINOL from this week. Eventhough some of the comments will not directly relate to your work, please read it all, as you can all benefit from the constructive criticism that is handed out.
OVERALL
Firstly well done, it was quite a well balanced bulletin. It featured some excellent local stories, mixed in with some really interesting University tales. I think that might be exactly the market we should be looking for. It has always been a difficult question about what are target market is, but if we consider that we have a captive audience of 5,000 campus students (or however many we are here) then we should be aiming to satisfy them. That is why the graduate jobs market story was so good - in fact so good I would have been tempted to lead with it. Boast about how good we are to the people we are directly broadcasting to, and allay their fears that they won't get jobs when they graduate.
HEADLINES
Three good headlines, but as above, I think the University one should be first as it's our target audience. But take note of how this was written. It was spot on. Using clever words to complement the pictures, and tell the story in a nutshell. Well done.
The pictures on the first headline are dull. One static shot. look how much more interesting the second and third heads are because you use a number of shots and they have movement in. No one is going to sit and look at a plane wide shot of a bit of green space and say, 'wow I must watch that item!'
EASTLEIGH HOUSING
LINK: I think starting your link with "People in Eastleigh...." is a bit weak and doesn't have much journalistic bite to it. Develop it in to a row, or harden it up a bit to add clout. And in the third sentence you may be better off finishing off what the Tories think, along the lines of...."The Tories claim there are more than 1000 empty homes in the town - and they want these filled before any further development starts....."
However if we are going to have two reports we need to say that. "In a moment we'll hear this, but first Alex Delaney with this..."
However while I can see what you have attempted, it is a bit like the dog wagging the tail. The information in the story and where the housing is comes in the second package, and the comment in the first - they seem the wrong way round. And in fact there is not enough for two packages - Calum's is editorially light because it lacks some of the facts.
PACKAGE
My issue with this package is the pictures do not represent the story. When making television, the first and most important thing is that the pictures must reflect the story. Here they don't. While there are gvs of the Eastleigh, the conflict is the building of new homes on green belt land. Your opening shot seems to be a park, and no one is going to build an estate here. You need shots of rural Hampshire, new houses being built as well as shots that reflect the promotion of new jobs through industry.
The cut away you have used in the middle of your grab, doesn't make sense I'm afraid. It doesn't reflect what he is talking about and is too short. However the interview itself is nicely framed.
Tip for all reporters
What we have to avoid when leading in to grabs or statements is stating things that are not necessary. When writing scripts for television words are at a premium, so we need to choose them carefully. So when we are leading into a piece of SOT from your interviewee, make sure that you tee up what that person is going to say. For example rather than saying, "This is what Mr Dobbs had to say". You should be saying something more like, "The Tory leader is strongly against the plans". Then you would hear from the grab from Mr Dobbs, the Tory leader. Never date it by saying this is what he said on Tuesday - unless it is important that it was a ceertain day for editorial reasons. Otherwise you are making your package seem out of date.
Many of the shots in this package seemed soft, but perhaps they seem that way because their quality has been butchered by uploading them and me watching them 3,000 miles away on an ordinary internet connection in Doha! We'll work on some voice training too.
PART 2
As I have already said I don't think there is a need for a second package, as it actually shows how little information there is in the first package. The graphic is good and is the first bit of real detail on the story. However there seems to be a repeated shot of Eastleigh Council which we saw in Calum's piece. Two reporters must work together if they are to run packages on the same story, back to back. Alex you look good on camera, but it would have worked better if you were in Eastleigh.
Tips for reporters
Note the good use of NATSOT at the start of this package. It really adds to the impact at the start of the report. try and do it as often as you can.
One final things - you don't need to use an SOQ when you're in our news room. It also doesn't make sense that your sign off is in Winchester when the story is clearly about somewhere else.
BUSINESS WINCHESTER
This is a well constructed package with some really good grabs. You have interviewd the key players and used some well assembled SOT to tell the story. You scrub up pretty well too Harvey and look good on camera! I still think there could have been more detail in what this scheme is doing to help businesses - it sounds like they'll just have a little chat with them, but I'm sure there must be more to it than that. But amongst the good stuff, there are things to work on too, specifically the technical side.
Harvey your shots look blue. And immediately I am turned off the story because it all looks a bit strange.
Tips for reporters
Make sure you white balance before shooting otherwise your shots will be blue. Use a piece of paper or a white wall and do the white balancing before your start any shoot.
You don't need to namecheck your interviewee either - that's what captions are for. I like the fact you have used a local businessman to illustrate the story, but again you have set him up saying his name and bookstore, when your caption does that for you. Use the time you had then for that, to add something else to the script. Your shots for the set up of the bookseller are very good though. You do the namecheck set up on your third grab as well. But I know you won't be doing that again.
Tip for reporters
Harvey uses some good set up shots for the book seller in this package, before going to a grab of the bookseller himself. What would make this edit even better is to bring the bookseller's SOT, just under the end of the set-up shots, so we just here from him, perhaps a second before we see him. It's just a simple developed technique of softening edits. You don't always have to do a hard edit where sound and pictures change at the same time. Don't be afraid to put the grab in first and then a moment later, we can see who is talking - it'll be obvious if you are doing a set-up shot anyway.
There is a mention of a review at the end and I'm not sure that has been mentioned anywhere else, or am I wrong? But this is a really good effort and shows that when you talk to the right people it makes a real difference to the package.
Finally Harvey we need to work on your framing, as it is wrong for all three interviews - however the final PTC is framed well.
Tips for reporters/camera operators
Remember your rule of thirds for framing interviews and shots. This is very easy to understand version of the golden rule of stills and video photography Rule of Thirds
TEACHER STRIKES
LINK: There's a mix of tenses in the opening line. "Thousands of children have had their education disrupted tomorrow..." - how can that happen. Was it just a misread, or did no one pick that up. Let's get our English right. And anyway let's say they've got the day off school or something, otherwise it sounds a bit formal.
Emma - well done - this is a pretty good stab at the story, although I would have liked to have known if parents agreed or sympathised with the strike. Let's talk to them. It was great to get access to a school and see some children. Are those new shots or are they archive?
I'm not sure if the first interview was framed correctly but it may have been distorted during compression or may have been the wrong aspect ratio. But see above for rule of thirds.
Your voice over is very deliberate but also very striking and you can use that to good effect if we tweak it in future to get more rhythm to it.
LEGAL NIBS
Good to get these two together. Makes perfect sense.
It would have been good to see this legal eagle actually open it rather than just talk about it, otherwise it's a bit dry.
As for Mansfield it's a good-ish grab but a bit abrupt at the end so I feel like I wanted to hear some more from him.
Ellen - just a note for you here - you've done a really good job on reading this bulletin. Very precise and if this is your first go it's excellent. But....
Tip for presenters
Just a tip when you are reading one story followed by another, and you are in vision for both, just drop your eyes in between stories and look down, then look back up again. It just signals to the viewer that there is a break, and that they should realise the next story is something different.
WINCHESTER GRADUATES
This is a box office story for our target audience and we should sing it from the rooftops. You are 20% more likely to get a job if you graduate from Winchester than the average graduate in the country. Check. That. Out.
LINK: That's why we need to beef up the link and sell the story. That's also why I think it has to lead our bulletin. We can debate why, but I genuinely think it's that good.
PACKAGE
Matt you show off some very real skills in this package but there are also some glaring errors. Your first PTC is terrific. Good use of language, matched with some great movement, and all sitting within perfect pictures. It is spot on. But your story loses its.
The graphic is good and is a great visual explainer in simplistic terms. The grab with Neil is good although I think there's a slightly dodgy sound edit in there.
Where it falls down though is that you haven't talked to any students about how pleased they are about it, and what about some perspective employers who are keen to use graduates in their local firms etc.
It may have been an on the day package, but you could have done the interviews before with employers and the students on the day.
The second PTC doesn't quite work. And don't just do an SOQ in vision with no other words to go with it.
SPORT
I'll have a word with sport individually about this and Sportsweek but read what former WINOL sports editor Gareth Messenger has to say at Gareth's Blog
Gareth was so good as an editor that I made sure that we at Al Jazeera employed him because he showed drive, initiative and skill. He is now well ahead of where most graduates would be in experience and pay scale, because of the eagerness and talent.
There will be more opportunities for those who show similar attributes - Aarran Summers who graduated from the MA in the summer of 2012, is the latest to join a growing band from the sports team to join me at Al Jazeera. Kieran Brannigan who finished in 2011, has now left AJ and is working at BT Sport. Talent in news, in sport, in features, will be rewarded.
Finally for sport - two things not to do next week.
If you are shooting links outside, then choose a sporting venue, and centre up so your presenter is in the middle of the frame.
Secondly use your second camera for replays only and not first time shots on edits. It's great to get the second angle but don't cut it into the real time action - only use camera one, then if you're using a replay, then use the second camera. Alternatively use the second camera next to the first one, and then the second camera shoots the tight shot - then you can cut real time in between cameras one and two.
AND FINALLY
Liam I always like the fact that you will try something to make your package different. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but at least you are experimentiung with the genre.
This piece was a bit more straightforward, yet it still opened with a clever shot. The pull focus and then the great framing of the wolf was perfect. It had NAT SOT and you didn't rush it.
A few things I would say about the piece though - it's a great 'and finally' - furry animals always win an audience, but I am not sure you can describe them as 'majestic beasts'. I'm not sure that is the right adjective.
Also you never really told me WHY they are misunderstood. One of their keepers should have told us why the notion of them as flesh eating 40s horror movie characters is wrong because.....they love human company, or they are lonely and want attention, or they love their tummy being tickled....something to suggest they are different from our pre-conceived notion about them.
AND FINALLY FINALLY
Well done team. Another good effort. Very promising. But just think about pictures and what a story is really all about. Then tell it to us. See you on Wednesday.
Btw I'm very happy to hear your comments and questions on this.
Here is my detailed run down of WINOL from this week. Eventhough some of the comments will not directly relate to your work, please read it all, as you can all benefit from the constructive criticism that is handed out.
OVERALL
Firstly well done, it was quite a well balanced bulletin. It featured some excellent local stories, mixed in with some really interesting University tales. I think that might be exactly the market we should be looking for. It has always been a difficult question about what are target market is, but if we consider that we have a captive audience of 5,000 campus students (or however many we are here) then we should be aiming to satisfy them. That is why the graduate jobs market story was so good - in fact so good I would have been tempted to lead with it. Boast about how good we are to the people we are directly broadcasting to, and allay their fears that they won't get jobs when they graduate.
HEADLINES
Three good headlines, but as above, I think the University one should be first as it's our target audience. But take note of how this was written. It was spot on. Using clever words to complement the pictures, and tell the story in a nutshell. Well done.
The pictures on the first headline are dull. One static shot. look how much more interesting the second and third heads are because you use a number of shots and they have movement in. No one is going to sit and look at a plane wide shot of a bit of green space and say, 'wow I must watch that item!'
EASTLEIGH HOUSING
LINK: I think starting your link with "People in Eastleigh...." is a bit weak and doesn't have much journalistic bite to it. Develop it in to a row, or harden it up a bit to add clout. And in the third sentence you may be better off finishing off what the Tories think, along the lines of...."The Tories claim there are more than 1000 empty homes in the town - and they want these filled before any further development starts....."
However if we are going to have two reports we need to say that. "In a moment we'll hear this, but first Alex Delaney with this..."
However while I can see what you have attempted, it is a bit like the dog wagging the tail. The information in the story and where the housing is comes in the second package, and the comment in the first - they seem the wrong way round. And in fact there is not enough for two packages - Calum's is editorially light because it lacks some of the facts.
PACKAGE
My issue with this package is the pictures do not represent the story. When making television, the first and most important thing is that the pictures must reflect the story. Here they don't. While there are gvs of the Eastleigh, the conflict is the building of new homes on green belt land. Your opening shot seems to be a park, and no one is going to build an estate here. You need shots of rural Hampshire, new houses being built as well as shots that reflect the promotion of new jobs through industry.
The cut away you have used in the middle of your grab, doesn't make sense I'm afraid. It doesn't reflect what he is talking about and is too short. However the interview itself is nicely framed.
Tip for all reporters
What we have to avoid when leading in to grabs or statements is stating things that are not necessary. When writing scripts for television words are at a premium, so we need to choose them carefully. So when we are leading into a piece of SOT from your interviewee, make sure that you tee up what that person is going to say. For example rather than saying, "This is what Mr Dobbs had to say". You should be saying something more like, "The Tory leader is strongly against the plans". Then you would hear from the grab from Mr Dobbs, the Tory leader. Never date it by saying this is what he said on Tuesday - unless it is important that it was a ceertain day for editorial reasons. Otherwise you are making your package seem out of date.
Many of the shots in this package seemed soft, but perhaps they seem that way because their quality has been butchered by uploading them and me watching them 3,000 miles away on an ordinary internet connection in Doha! We'll work on some voice training too.
PART 2
As I have already said I don't think there is a need for a second package, as it actually shows how little information there is in the first package. The graphic is good and is the first bit of real detail on the story. However there seems to be a repeated shot of Eastleigh Council which we saw in Calum's piece. Two reporters must work together if they are to run packages on the same story, back to back. Alex you look good on camera, but it would have worked better if you were in Eastleigh.
Tips for reporters
Note the good use of NATSOT at the start of this package. It really adds to the impact at the start of the report. try and do it as often as you can.
One final things - you don't need to use an SOQ when you're in our news room. It also doesn't make sense that your sign off is in Winchester when the story is clearly about somewhere else.
BUSINESS WINCHESTER
This is a well constructed package with some really good grabs. You have interviewd the key players and used some well assembled SOT to tell the story. You scrub up pretty well too Harvey and look good on camera! I still think there could have been more detail in what this scheme is doing to help businesses - it sounds like they'll just have a little chat with them, but I'm sure there must be more to it than that. But amongst the good stuff, there are things to work on too, specifically the technical side.
Harvey your shots look blue. And immediately I am turned off the story because it all looks a bit strange.
Tips for reporters
Make sure you white balance before shooting otherwise your shots will be blue. Use a piece of paper or a white wall and do the white balancing before your start any shoot.
You don't need to namecheck your interviewee either - that's what captions are for. I like the fact you have used a local businessman to illustrate the story, but again you have set him up saying his name and bookstore, when your caption does that for you. Use the time you had then for that, to add something else to the script. Your shots for the set up of the bookseller are very good though. You do the namecheck set up on your third grab as well. But I know you won't be doing that again.
Tip for reporters
Harvey uses some good set up shots for the book seller in this package, before going to a grab of the bookseller himself. What would make this edit even better is to bring the bookseller's SOT, just under the end of the set-up shots, so we just here from him, perhaps a second before we see him. It's just a simple developed technique of softening edits. You don't always have to do a hard edit where sound and pictures change at the same time. Don't be afraid to put the grab in first and then a moment later, we can see who is talking - it'll be obvious if you are doing a set-up shot anyway.
There is a mention of a review at the end and I'm not sure that has been mentioned anywhere else, or am I wrong? But this is a really good effort and shows that when you talk to the right people it makes a real difference to the package.
Finally Harvey we need to work on your framing, as it is wrong for all three interviews - however the final PTC is framed well.
Tips for reporters/camera operators
Remember your rule of thirds for framing interviews and shots. This is very easy to understand version of the golden rule of stills and video photography Rule of Thirds
TEACHER STRIKES
LINK: There's a mix of tenses in the opening line. "Thousands of children have had their education disrupted tomorrow..." - how can that happen. Was it just a misread, or did no one pick that up. Let's get our English right. And anyway let's say they've got the day off school or something, otherwise it sounds a bit formal.
Emma - well done - this is a pretty good stab at the story, although I would have liked to have known if parents agreed or sympathised with the strike. Let's talk to them. It was great to get access to a school and see some children. Are those new shots or are they archive?
I'm not sure if the first interview was framed correctly but it may have been distorted during compression or may have been the wrong aspect ratio. But see above for rule of thirds.
Your voice over is very deliberate but also very striking and you can use that to good effect if we tweak it in future to get more rhythm to it.
LEGAL NIBS
Good to get these two together. Makes perfect sense.
It would have been good to see this legal eagle actually open it rather than just talk about it, otherwise it's a bit dry.
As for Mansfield it's a good-ish grab but a bit abrupt at the end so I feel like I wanted to hear some more from him.
Ellen - just a note for you here - you've done a really good job on reading this bulletin. Very precise and if this is your first go it's excellent. But....
Tip for presenters
Just a tip when you are reading one story followed by another, and you are in vision for both, just drop your eyes in between stories and look down, then look back up again. It just signals to the viewer that there is a break, and that they should realise the next story is something different.
WINCHESTER GRADUATES
This is a box office story for our target audience and we should sing it from the rooftops. You are 20% more likely to get a job if you graduate from Winchester than the average graduate in the country. Check. That. Out.
LINK: That's why we need to beef up the link and sell the story. That's also why I think it has to lead our bulletin. We can debate why, but I genuinely think it's that good.
PACKAGE
Matt you show off some very real skills in this package but there are also some glaring errors. Your first PTC is terrific. Good use of language, matched with some great movement, and all sitting within perfect pictures. It is spot on. But your story loses its.
The graphic is good and is a great visual explainer in simplistic terms. The grab with Neil is good although I think there's a slightly dodgy sound edit in there.
Where it falls down though is that you haven't talked to any students about how pleased they are about it, and what about some perspective employers who are keen to use graduates in their local firms etc.
It may have been an on the day package, but you could have done the interviews before with employers and the students on the day.
The second PTC doesn't quite work. And don't just do an SOQ in vision with no other words to go with it.
SPORT
I'll have a word with sport individually about this and Sportsweek but read what former WINOL sports editor Gareth Messenger has to say at Gareth's Blog
Gareth was so good as an editor that I made sure that we at Al Jazeera employed him because he showed drive, initiative and skill. He is now well ahead of where most graduates would be in experience and pay scale, because of the eagerness and talent.
There will be more opportunities for those who show similar attributes - Aarran Summers who graduated from the MA in the summer of 2012, is the latest to join a growing band from the sports team to join me at Al Jazeera. Kieran Brannigan who finished in 2011, has now left AJ and is working at BT Sport. Talent in news, in sport, in features, will be rewarded.
Finally for sport - two things not to do next week.
If you are shooting links outside, then choose a sporting venue, and centre up so your presenter is in the middle of the frame.
Secondly use your second camera for replays only and not first time shots on edits. It's great to get the second angle but don't cut it into the real time action - only use camera one, then if you're using a replay, then use the second camera. Alternatively use the second camera next to the first one, and then the second camera shoots the tight shot - then you can cut real time in between cameras one and two.
AND FINALLY
Liam I always like the fact that you will try something to make your package different. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but at least you are experimentiung with the genre.
This piece was a bit more straightforward, yet it still opened with a clever shot. The pull focus and then the great framing of the wolf was perfect. It had NAT SOT and you didn't rush it.
A few things I would say about the piece though - it's a great 'and finally' - furry animals always win an audience, but I am not sure you can describe them as 'majestic beasts'. I'm not sure that is the right adjective.
Also you never really told me WHY they are misunderstood. One of their keepers should have told us why the notion of them as flesh eating 40s horror movie characters is wrong because.....they love human company, or they are lonely and want attention, or they love their tummy being tickled....something to suggest they are different from our pre-conceived notion about them.
AND FINALLY FINALLY
Well done team. Another good effort. Very promising. But just think about pictures and what a story is really all about. Then tell it to us. See you on Wednesday.
Btw I'm very happy to hear your comments and questions on this.
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